Ships
- USS Saratoga (CV-3) Captain from 1 August 1944 · Relieved on 27 April 1945
Lucian Ancel Moebus, known in the Navy as Fish, was an officer of the United States Naval Academy class of 1920. He was born in Ohio in 1900, and his Navy home of record was Lima, Ohio. He became a lieutenant commander on 30 June 1936, a commander on 1 January 1941, and a temporary captain on 20 June 1942.
Before he took a carrier of his own, Moebus served as chief of staff to Commander, Aircraft, South Pacific Force. The Navy awarded him the Legion of Merit for that staff duty.
He assumed command of the aircraft carrier Saratoga (CV-3) on 1 August 1944. The ship was then on the West Coast, in the last weeks of a long overhaul at the Puget Sound Navy Yard in Bremerton, Washington. He remained her commanding officer until he was relieved on 27 April 1945.
Saratoga finished her post-repair trials in mid-September 1944. She loaded aircraft, passengers, and cargo at Naval Air Station Alameda, sailed from San Francisco, and reached Pearl Harbor on 24 September. There she joined Carrier Division 11, whose work was to train night-fighter pilots and to settle doctrine for night carrier operations. On 10 October 1944 Rear Admiral Matthias Gardner made Saratoga his flagship, and the old carrier spent the rest of the year in that training role.
In February 1945 Saratoga went back to combat as a night carrier for the landings on Iwo Jima. On 21 February, while she was operating off the island, Japanese aircraft attacked and kamikazes struck the ship more than once. Fire and wreckage put the flight deck out of action, and the crew took heavy casualties, with more than a hundred men killed. Moebus remained in command as Saratoga left the operation, received emergency repairs at Eniwetok, and headed for a full restoration at Puget Sound. He was relieved on 27 April 1945 while that yard work was still ahead of her.
Saratoga was already a veteran when Moebus came aboard. Commissioned in 1927, she had begun service under Harry Ervin Yarnell. Later commanding officers included William Frederick Halsey, Jr., Albert Cushing Read, and Robert Potter Molten, Jr., who died in 1940 during his tour in command. Archibald Hugh Douglas had her from 1940 into the first year of the Pacific war. Moebus had the Lexington-class ship near the end of her fighting career, when her assignment had narrowed to night operations and then to survival after Iwo Jima. Moebus died on 3 July 1990 and was buried at Barrancas National Cemetery in Pensacola, Florida.